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HP Shatters Excessive Packaging World RecordComments: 358
Comments: 358
Posted by
timothy
on Sunday July 20, @11:01PM
from the please-say-this-isn't-true dept.
from the please-say-this-isn't-true dept.
An anonymous reader writes "HP customers will be familiar with their bizarre packaging practices (5 pounds of packaging for 8 license keys!); lets just say this story is not an isolated incident ... " I've seen some excessive packaging, but perhaps nothing to top this.
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Crazy (Score:5, Funny)
I've seen something crazy, but not that crazy. That's just ... crazy.
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Re:Crazy (Score:5, Funny)
Could it have something to do with the wording of the "shrink wrap license"? Like "by opening this box you agree..."?
That would be really depressing.
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More like "by entering"... (Score:5, Funny)
By venturing more than 3 feet into the depths of this 'box' you agree that any encounters that may result between the entrant and any:
I - trolls
II - goblins or
III - beings of origins
a - Extraterrestrial
b - Indeterminate
c - Unknown
are the sole responsibility of the recipient.
Furthermore, you agree that any objects discovered therein, including but not limited to:
I - treasure,
II - artifact,
III - relics of historical significance, or
IV - the shipped product
are to remain the property of HP, inc. in perpetuity and are to be returned with 28 calendar days, with attachment of a check for the full value of any life insurance policies, savings, properties or outstanding paychecks of any of the intended package recipients who may have perished within.
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Re:Crazy (Score:5, Funny)
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MSDN (Score:5, Insightful)
And I thought the MSDN CDs ya get posted were bad.
They come in a box about the size of an Eee PC (but taller), and contain just a CD in a sleeve cover.
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No wonder HP is a mess. (Score:5, Insightful)
Cost of shipping 150$?
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Entry in Roget's Thesaurus: (Score:5, Funny)
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Parent
Nothing new here (Score:5, Informative)
Sounds about typical for HP. Back many years ago when I was primarily an HP-UX SA, excessive packaging was the norm as well.
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Re:Nothing new here (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Nothing new here (Score:5, Informative)
But... but... HP and Dell scored top marks from Greenpeace. Clearly the packaging was needed to protect the license papers which means you'd kill more tree for more paper if they are damaged.
[This also show that Greenpeace ranking is irrelevant]
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Re:Nothing new here (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet, with all that thought going into your post, you don't seem to address the "why the hell would you use a foam-lined cardboard box for two sheets of paper in the first place" question.
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Shipping department (Score:5, Insightful)
Often times when you ask the shipping department to take care of a package containing hardware, let's say in a 12 x 12 x 4 cube, they are nice enough to protect by putting it in a box with extra padding. Sometimes, when you note it's out of IT and don't notice it's already reboxed, they'll do it again.
This is not that unusual. Clearly they ship out their licenses in a box. I'd just use an envelope like those free ones from the shipping companies. But why ask why, put it in a box. Got many boxes? Put the boxes in a box.
Why not be thoughtful and put 32 pages in one box? This presumes the shipping department knows what's in the box, and even they know, why would they want to deal with all these extra boxes when they can ship them off to the customer.
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You get what you measure (Score:5, Insightful)
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Personally experienced _much_ worse (Score:5, Interesting)
(Posting anonymously for obvious reasons)
When working for a spin-off of HP, we did a licence audit and decided we needed 500 or so C++ compiler licences for compliance. Order them. Expect a single A4 sheet back saying we're covered.
Instead, we get a pair of huge 2m x 2m x 2m boxes, on shipping palets, containing 500 smaller A4-sized cardboard boxes, each containing an A4 paper licence. This was soul-destroying fail of the highest level and led me down the path to BOFH-dom.
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Re:Personally experienced _much_ worse (Score:5, Interesting)
lol... paying for a C++ compiler.
You're funny, I like you.
People did this in the old days. I once paid for the ACC compiler as well (I guess that's the one), because GCC was "open source" which was utterly distrusted by everyone. How times have changed - now the place is full of Linux systems, the few remaining HPUX machines will be replaced as soon as is convenient, and Sun? The only one I've seen in the last five years is the one in the sky.
ACC, while a bit shaky in its implementation of the C++ standard, at least produced great error messages. Typically it did not just tell you what was wrong and where, but also what it thought you needed to change to fix it. And mostly it got it right too!
"In file xxx on line yy, function FooBarBaz is undefined. Maybe you meant to call function FooBarBoz?"
Really, all it was missing was an interactive mode where you could just tell it to change the source for you...
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Parent
That's nothing... (Score:5, Funny)
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Office Depot is pretty close (Score:5, Interesting)
.
I repeat: 1 roll of scotch tape in an huge box full of peanuts. Shipping was free.
P.S. I have have the receipt but not a picture of the box as it was in 2006.
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Just like their apps (Score:5, Insightful)
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No prank (Score:5, Insightful)
At first I thought this was just a prank pulled by someone who didn't like HP, but after reading the comments I seem to have to believe it's true. It makes you see this [hp.com] in a whole new light.
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That's What She Said (Score:5, Funny)
My...that's a big package.
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Dell isn't much better, though (Score:5, Interesting)
Look at the packaging for a few screws [thedailywtf.com]!
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Non Geek Packaging Record (Score:5, Funny)
This is the craziest I've ever seen personally.
A box arrived in the mail. It was maybe 10 x 6 x 4 or so. Inside that was a manila envelope. Inside that was a small box, slightly larger than a jewlers ring box. Inside that was a clear plastic pill bottle. Inside that was a small ziploc baggie.
Inside that was ONE styrafoam bead, like from a beanbag chair. it was the replacement foam bead for an anemometer.
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Not to mention... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Sun can be just as bad (Score:5, Insightful)
There's actually a good reason behind why the power cord(s) is/are packaged separately, and hence in their own boxes - international differences in electrical sockets.
It would suck for inventory and man power if you constantly had to manage how many of each of your servers have continental europe, british, north american and so on power cords with them in the box.
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How does excessive packaging happen? (Score:5, Interesting)
No need to worry, John. HP is in a Slashdot story. There will be very capable people, I think, who say to themselves, "Maybe I should apply for a job at HP. Nah, maybe not."
The parent comment says, "My experience[s] with HP have been increasingly disappointing. Recently..."
That's been our experience, too. HP seems to be getting a little better, however, now that Carly Fiorina [hp.com] has left. Before, it was REALLY ugly.
How does excessive packaging happen? It happens because people become so unhappy working for a company that they slip into becoming robotic drones. Nothing matters. They just try to get through each day. Illogical packaging is only one of the many, many illogical things that happen every day. Those people never go to hell, because if they arrive there, Satan says, "You've suffered enough. You don't belong here."
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